Let the crafting begin

A few weeks ago I decided to invite five of my young cousins (OK, technically first cousins once removed) to come over for a kids' craft day. I offered to do a few crafty Christmas projects with them so their moms could have a few hours to do whatever they needed or wanted to do. Well, tomorrow's the big day.

I've been looking forward to kids' craft day, but I've also been a little stressed about it, more than I thought I would be. I have craft materials of nearly every variety, and I plan art projects almost daily for my toddlers at work, so how hard could it be, right? Well, there were a couple of challenges. First, we only have about three hours from start to finish. Not a lot of drying time for paint or significant amounts of glue. Second, the kids' ages range from about 2-1/2 to 6-1/2 years old, so I needed something manageable for the young ones but not boring for the older ones.

I finally decided on decorating trees as the main activity. I cut tree and trunk shapes out of fun foam, glued them together and then gathered all sorts of odds and ends for decorating -- buttons, hearts punched out of card stock, mini jingles bells and strands of lights, pom poms, fabric stars and beads -- and sorted them into muffin tins. It's a pretty open-ended project, and I'm sure they'll have all kinds of creative ideas.

I also took out some gingerbread men die-cuts that they can decorate (with the above-mentioned supplies as well as glitter glue and googly eyes) to make ornaments or fridge magnets. (I will glue a clothespin to the back of the gingerbread men and then add a magnet on the clothespin.) For a third option, I have some pipe cleaners ready to go in case they want to make beaded ornaments. And if all else fails, I bought each of them an activity pack from the dollar section at Target that includes a little coloring book, crayons and stickers. I'll keep them busy one way or another!

I'm planning to take pictures tomorrow, so come back later this weekend to see the masterpieces. Thanks for stopping by!